Straight to You Page 0,16

replied with a look of real disappointment on her face. 'I've got workmen in the shop all day tomorrow and I'd rather not leave them there on their own.'

'That's all right,' I said, trying desperately to think of a solution to our problem. I had been counting on seeing Samantha again. I suddenly had an idea. 'I could bring them over to you in my lunch hour, if that's all right.'

'Could you?' she wondered excitedly. 'God, that would be brilliant.' She thought for a moment. 'Isn't it a bit out of your way though?'

It was, but I could not let her know that.

'Not really,' I lied.

'I'll make something to eat, shall I? We can celebrate.'

I smiled and nodded approval and, as I looked once more into Samantha's deep and mesmerising eyes, she reached out across the table and gently squeezed my hand.

The evening progressed enjoyably. Mark was content to sit and talk to Samantha's friends while I was more than happy to relax and talk to Sam herself. I was equally pleased that she seemed just as happy to spend her time with me.

The table which we were gathered around was next to a little window, the lead-lined panes of which were open wide but offered virtually no respite from the suffocating heat. Occasionally, a light breeze fluttered into the room but, other than that, the night was still and humid. From my position at the end of the table I could see little outside other than the tops of the roofs of the buildings across the street and the moon burning brightly in the cloudless evening sky.

We had talked for a good hour (which had seemed to have only taken a few minutes to pass) and both Samantha and I had learned a lot about each other. The questions had not needed to be asked directly, instead we had willingly volunteered information to each other. I felt as if I subconsciously wanted her to know everything about me. Sam had been telling me about her plans to get a mortgage and to buy a home of her own when we were interrupted.

'...and then, once I've got the business really going,' she said, 'I'll be looking to try and find a little...' she stopped talking suddenly.

Through the open window, a hot and heavy wind started to blow indoors. The people gathered around tables and those sitting outside in the carpark quickly became quiet, and a deathly hush settled on the whole building as the jukebox stopped playing. The lights flickered and dimmed.

For a moment the air was choking and inescapably hot. I struggled to look through the tiny window and see what was happening outside but it was difficult from my awkward vantage point at the end of the table. I watched the sky above the pub and saw that it had slowly begun to change colour. As every pair of eyes in the crowded building strained to look skywards, we watched as the darkness of the sky melted away to become a muddy-red, an ember orange and then a yellow-white. Once the heavens had reached that colour, they worked their way back through the various shades until, moments later, they were back to their normal hue. The wind died, the lights brightened and then, after a second's silence, the jukebox began to play its thumping music again. Apart from the music, no-one else dared make a sound.

Mark was the first to speak

'Shit,' he said, simply.

'It was just like last week,' Sam's cousin Daniel said. 'Scary.'

The conversation ended as quickly as it had begun while we all paused to gather our thoughts and try and comprehend what we had just witnessed. Although I could not speak for any of the others, the heat and light had shaken me to the core and I was glad of the couple of drinks that I had had earlier to calm my nerves. It was not so much fright, it was more a sense of bewilderment and the lack of any warnings or explanations which had combined to unnerve me.

'Someone at work said that might happen,' Mark commented quietly. 'He said there could be more as well.'

'What was it though?' Daniel asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

'I don't know. I don't think anybody knows.' He thought for a moment and ran his fingers nervously through his hair before speaking again. 'There are a few people at the university who are starting to get worried about what's been happening.'

I had been staring deep into the bottom of